For decades, tuberculosis has claimed men's lives at roughly twice the rate of women's, and the world has largely accepted this disparity as a biological fact of nature. A new UCL study of more than 22,000 people across 14 countries now offers a quieter, more actionable truth: men are not more vulnerable to TB once infected, they are simply more likely to encounter it in the first place. The disease gap, it turns out, is written not in biology but in the daily circumstances of men's lives — in where they work, how they gather, and the environments they move through.
Study reveals men's higher TB rates driven by exposure, not biology
TB disproportionately affects men globally, representing approximately two-thirds of diagnosed cases and contributing to significant disease burden.